Oldie But Goodie

KarTRASHian City

Yeah, I’m dredging the bottom of the barrel to keep from having to talk about or think about that man.

I have only watched about ten seconds of that KarTRASHian show.  But hearing about things that happen on it is unavoidable at least from where I sit.

While the oldest KarTRASHian sister is involved in a new relationship once every kardash, the middle one seems to be happily married to NBAer Lamar Odor.  Well, at some point last year, the Lakers traded Mr. Middle Kardashian to the Dallas Mavericks.  Apparently, Middle KarTRASHian herself did nothing but cry and whine and bitch on the show that she had to leave civilization (Southern California) and move to Dallas (tumbleweed hickville).  Now, I wouldn’t expect any of the KarTRASHian sisters to know much of anything, so I wouldn’t expect the middle sister to know that Dallas has to be about the snootiest city in America.  I’m sure she’s shopped at Needless Markup at least once in her life (or, more accurately, at least once per day).  Where did it get its start and still has its flagship retail store?  Dallas.  Has she ever heard of the prime time TV soap opera Dallas?  I’ll give her a hint:  It was about Dallas.  Ceteris Paribus, I bet there are more $100,000 cars in Dallas than there are in Los Angeles.  There’s a saying in Texas:  Dallas is champagne and caviar, Houston is beer and barbecue.

It wasn’t that she was too good for Dallas, it’s that Dallas was too good for her.  I presume she knows that by now.  And, as it is, Odor is back in Los Angeles, this time playing for the Clippers, which in our Onion world, is now the toast of the NBA.  So it made her happy to be able to get out of Dallas, but not for the reasons she first thought.

Round and Round This Goes

Texas

The big news in Low Information City is that some guy who rides a bike and takes dope sat down for an interview with The Oprah.  Then, Gayle King, whoever she is, interviewed The Oprah about her interviewing Lance Armstrong.  Then, Charlie Rose interviewed Gayle King about her interview of The Oprah.  This pile of dominoes probably ends at Piers Morgan.

It’s already leaking out in Forbes that Armstrong was short on contrition and long on blaming other people, namely other well known ‘roiders from the steroid era in professional sports and athletics.  If he can find a way to blame Bush, he’s a shoo-in to go into the Obama White House.  President’s Council on Physical Fitness?  Why not?  Tim Geithner had trouble complying with tax laws.

If the ratings are good enough for this “bonanza,” I see this ending with The Oprah triumphantly announcing her return to regular five-day-a-week over-the-air television starting this fall.

Let’s Talk Commitment

Southern California

This says that Kim KarTRASHian and Kanye West have “committed” to an $11 million mansion in Bel-Air.  Fine, but it’s kind of ironic to drag the concept of “commitment” into a headline about Kim KarTRASHian, who hasn’t committed to one single man for longer than 72 days in her life.  Supposedly, Weird Al Yankovic defines the unit of time “kardash” as 72 days for that very reason.

She and Kris Humphries are still legally married.  Wouldn’t it be just a hoot if his lawyer was able to find a way to get him into legally owning half that house?  It will have an amenity that’s right in his wheelhouse (read on).

Speaking of the house, as it was sold, it has 11k sq.ft., but they’re gut rehabbing it to bump it up to 14k sq.ft.  Because 11,000 square feet just isn’t quite big enough to raise a kid.  She needs the extra room and the “movie theater and full hair and makeup salon, plus … a gym, bowling alley, basketball court and indoor and outdoor pool” that will be able to fit into the expanded house for the sake of herself, the kid, and the new quasi-stepfather that kid gets every kardash.  Interesting that a basketball court is going in — Does she think that she can make up with her estranged husband?  Or does she plan on screwing her brother-in-law Lamar Odom on the side and behind Khloe’s back?  Or maybe with the duel pools, maybe she’s eyeing Michael Phelps and/or Ryan Lochte.

Margin Call

I’ll net this movie out:

Mid-level managerial munchkin is doing some complex mathematics using pen and paper.  In a split second, he sees something so horrible that it makes his eyes bulge out, as if a super giant grizzly bear is making a beeline straight toward him.  Cue the ominous orchestral music, and ramp it up as he hurriedly rushes out of his office, heads toward the elevators, waits for an “up” elevator to ring, then the music gets even louder as the elevator with him in it slowly makes its way upward to the top floor.

Munchkin gets to the top floor, sees the CEO in an impromptu meeting that at least to the CEO is more important business than talking to the Munchkin at the moment.  Orchestral music calms down as Munchkin waits for the CEO to pay him attention.  CEO finally does that, and the music stops.  CEO and Munchkin walk off to the side.

Munchkin whispers to CEO, showing him his handwritten pen-and-paper math:  “Did you know, sir?  All our assets are built on top of the rock solid foundation of $720,000 mortgages issued to illegal alien Hispanic strawberry pickers making $14,000 a year.”

CEO whispers to Munchkin, while looking him in the eye:  “Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?”

Related:  Money Should Never Smooch

Lessons Learned

CNN

Rush:

CNN’s Ali Velshi Might Be Right About How Low-Information America Understands Economics

RUSH: Ali Velshi, obviously, ladies and gentlemen, is a low-information reporter. Ali Velshi, the economics guru at CNN, said last night: “Republicans need to understand the difference between the debt ceiling and debt.”

He’s saying that you can’t use the debt ceiling to try to control spending, and he said the Republicans are making a big mistake. He said the American people understand economics now.

How?  Is Kim Kardashian’s ass giving out economics lessons?

Almost:

So we thought we’d put the theory that the American people understand economics now, Ali Velshi’s theory, to the test.  So we went to Entertainment Tonight.  We have a portion of Christina McLarty.  She’s the infobabe at Entertainment Tonight.  She had a report about speculation that Kim Kardashian may pose nude while pregnant.

Head to Rush for the rest.

Not So Blessed

New Jersey

Kanye West and Kim KarTRASHian have a bun in the oven.

She feels so blessed.  But wait until the kid gets old enough to understand sexual reproduction.  “What, I got half of my DNA from you and the other half from you?  I’m utterly doomed.”

At least he or she will have a gold medal Olympic decathlete as a step grandfather in law.

In related news, more people are obsessing over what the baby will do to Kim KarTRASHian’s figure than what happened overnight in the Senate will do to their pocketbooks.

That Explains Everything

YouTube

Banner ad on YT (click to enlarge):

He said he was going to lose his shit if Romney won the election.  Too bad Romney didn’t win, because I would have wanted a front row seat to that.

Oh, and nice timing running this ad ultimately sponsored by a pharma that makes a Schedule II psycho-stimulant indicated to “treat” “ADHD” only four days after the Nutmeg Nutbar, God knows what he was on.

Adele’s Christmas Album

Title:  It’ll Be a Better Christmas Without You (H/T RJP)

Tracks:

1.  It’ll Be a Better Christmas Without You (Title Track)
2.  Ho Ho Ho, I Caught My Man With a Ho
3.  It’s Christmas Morning, So Why Is Your Shit Still In My House?
4.  I Saw My Boyfriend Humping Daughter Claus
5.  All I Want For Christmas Is For the Locksmith To Get Here Soon
6.  Santa Baby (I Want Revenge Sex)
7.  Have Yourself a Jerkoff Little Christmas (Cause You’re Not Getting Any More From Me)
8.  I Saw Three Drunks
9.  The Little Prepubescent Sandusky Jail Bait Drummer Boy
10.  Hark Now Hear the Other Woman Sing
11.  Frostette the Snow Bitch (Was Another Skank In Your Life)
12.  BONUS TRACK:  Hitler Finds out Adele Cut a Christmas Album

Bedtime Story

There was once a dark and foreboding forest, where menacing wolf-like beasts subsisted purely on a diet of young shirtless white men.  Lions Gate slapped a title on it and shipped it to theaters, where it grossed nine figures, lather rinse repeat multiple times.  Meanwhile, they didn’t pay any taxes on that revenue because of creative Hollywood accounting.  Yet, you, kiddos, are already $200,000 in debt apiece because of Obama and a few of his contemporaries and predecessors.

Nighty night.

Barbie World

New York

Ordinarily, I would react to this “news” by saying that not only do too many people have too much self-esteem, but also that too many people view the self-esteem of individuals and groups as a cure all.

However, she may have a point here.  Any world populated with people dumb enough to turn Lady Gag into a celebrity has a big problem with self-esteem.

Corporate Tax Breaks

Hollywood

Ever want to know why movie after movie “loses money” yet Hollywood can still afford to keep making them?

Hint:  It would make Arthur Andersen blush.

That sound you don’t hear is indignation from Obama and the Democrats.

High Marks

New York City

GLAAD gives the CW television network high marks. 

Because Nielsen sure doesn’t.

The only reason the CW is even profitable with its MSNBC-style ratings is because it engages in narrowcasting, i.e. its programming appeals to a certain demographic, in the CW’s case, teenagers and young adults.  Madison Avenue loves narrowcasting;  it’s an easy path to the eyeballs of a certain demographic.  If you make zit cream, you’re buying on the CW, not the CBS Evening News.  Vice versa if you make incontinence diapers.

Axe You

South Africa

Desmond Tutu wants the NBC “reality” show Stars Earn Stripes, heavily advertised during the Olympics, to be axed, because it promotes violence.

Okay, this coming from the man whose actions eventually resulted in the country with the highest violent crime rate of any country which can credibly tally crime statistics.

Ironically, former Gen. Wesley Clark is the host and voter-off-the-islander of the show, and he was a big left wing kiss ass.

Fox tried something like this early in the “reality” show craze, called Boot Camp.  Though it involved “regular” people instead of known celebs, and boot camp instead of SF training.  It was a ratings flop.

Half and Half

NYDN:

Jane Fonda makes a big return to acting with new roles in film and television

(snip)

“When I was writing my book, it was like, how much do I tell? And I told what I needed to tell in order to make the theme come through, to tell of the journey. I didn’t talk about the sex life with Vadim and all of that gratuitously. It was an important thing about where I was at that time. But there’s a whole lot I didn’t tell — it’s all scaled back! You ain’t heard the half of it!”

I didn’t want to hear about the first half.  I’ll go Oedipus Rex on my eardrums before I have to hear the second.

It Might Truly Be Over

Me, AR, four days ago:

You would be amazed to know that there are a lot of people who don’t know any of this.  We know the Obama-Jeremiah Wright connections, because we have been paying attention.

But there are a lot of people, voters in fact, who won’t ever know this until they see it on some ad during a commercial break for their stupid sitcoms about two dimwits tending bar in order to maintain a horse in New York City.

The “stupid sitcom” in question is Two Broke Girls, which aired this season at 8:30/7:30ct, in the slot before 2.5 Men.  Like I told RJP earlier today, they totally ruined 2.5 Men with Kutcher.  But I find it curious that CBS did pick it up for another season, but they’re moving it to Thursdays.  IOW, they’re moving it out of the marquee Monday 9/8c half-hour slot that has been the showcase for CBS’s most lucrative sitcom going back to the days of I Love Lucy.  This must mean that some people like me have quit 2.5 Men to justify moving it out of marquee slotting, but not enough have to justify tee total cancellation

Guess which show is slotted for Mon 9/8c this fall.

Corporate Greed, Millionaires and Billionaires

A big corporation jacked up the price of one of its marquee products 32% in four years.

Not a peep from the usual suspects.

Why not?

Its stock ticker is DIS.

Biden’s “Murphy Brown” Moment

Biden’s for gay “marriage.”  And we’re supposed to believe that Obama isn’t?  This is yet another issue which he’s waiting for his second term so he can have more flexibility.

WSJ:

Joe Biden Says ‘Will and Grace’ Helped Change Public Opinion on Gay Rights

Vice President Joe Biden says the sitcom “Will & Grace”  played an important role in changing perceptions about gay rights. During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” in which Biden made headlines for saying he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriage, he also said, “I think ‘Will and Grace’ probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody’s ever done so far.” The comedy series about a straight woman and her gay best friend, starring Debra Messing, Eric McCormack, Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes, ran on NBC from 1998 to 2006.

Still think that Dan Quayle was so wrong to pick on Murphy Brown ?  He couldn’t much spell, but he accidentally stumbled onto something important there.

One of the Breitbartistas said in the postmortem of their boss back in March that one of his pet bromides was that if given the one-or-the-other-but-not-both choice between writing all of our laws and all of our songs, he would pick songs.

Though I’m not so sure that Will and Grace has yet affected the gay “marriage” debate to the extent that Plugs thinks it has — Of all the times that state plebiscites on the definition of marriage have happened since 2004, with Missouri being the first in August 2004, only one has gone in favor of Mr. Truman and Miss Adler, that being Arizona in the blue wave election year of 2006, (coincidentally, W&G ended in 2006), and only because the ballot issue was confused with other things.  Since then, a “clean” ballot measure on the issue passed there.  In the states where it has been “legalized,” it has happened almost entirely as a result of the judiciary.

The Computer Show

My favorite episode of Married With Children was S3E20, “The Computer Show.”  It’s the one when over Al’s objections, the Bundy family buys a computer.  Since the red envelope company has every episode of MWC online, you can watch it now if you’re one of their customers.  It’s as hilarious as any MWC ep, but it makes me sad in a way — I wonder whatever happened to the good ole fashioned slobcom.  And here I go, showing my age, calling a 1987-97 show “old fashioned.”

That episode aired in May 1989.  So when Marcy spouts off the specs of the machine she and Steve helped the Bundys sans Al pick out, you won’t be surprised.  She brags about its 40 megabyte hard drive.  Hell, I have a MUSIC file that’s bigger than 40 MB.

UPDATE 9/15

At least until the media conglomerate that owns the rights to MWC notices, this episode is on YouTube:

Raj In Love

AP:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An online ad featuring Ashton Kutcher as an Indian man has been pulled offline after viewers called it racist.

The images and video for Popchips feature the 34-year-old “Two and a Half Men” star in brown makeup portraying a Bollywood producer named Raj who is “looking for love.” They were removed from YouTube and Facebook after being criticized online.

Other videos featuring Kutcher as a stoner, tattooed Southerner and pasty fashionista remain online.

That’s good to know.  We can insult white Southerners without impunity.  Just stay away from the Indians.

Final Score: Adele 6, Bruno Mars 0

Interesting.  The NARAS honors the untimely passing of someone who won six lifetime Grammys by giving someone six Grammys in one night.

I agree with my most frequent commenter RJP that her “whoa is my broken heart/jilted lover” act has a short shelf life, so Whitney Houston can RIP a little bit more peacefully that Adele’s six last night will be her only six.  The good part about it, though, is that Adele winning means that neither that emaciated stick figure that calls itself “Bruno Mars” nor Lady Gag, President of the Jan Brewer Fan Club (note the sarcasm), won anything.  The only Grammys for which either the Stick Figure or the Gagster was nominated were categories that Adele was also nominated, and she went six-for-six, so she was in essence a big linebacker that prevented either one of them from gaining any yards.

Sympathy Vote

She could clean up at the Grammys on Sunday.

Why?  Because she sounds like Amy Winehouse.  Though the comparisons will end when Adele turns 28 because she didn’t keel over for an overdose at 27.  (See also:  Hendrix, J., Cobain, K.)

Scare Me Spare Me

A&E spent time at the St. Clair County can for one of its upcoming episodes of Beyond Scared Straight.

I call bullshit on the whole concept, much less this series.

The whole premise is that wayward adolescents get “hard knocks” lessons from hoosegowbirds who tell them about how they fucked up their own lives, and beg you not to go down their own mistaken path.  Whoever heard of contrite jail inmates?  Remember, they didn’t do nuttin’, the po-leeceseses are all racist, their lawyers fucked ’em over, they got the wrong guy, the cops planted the shit on ’em.

Squashing Turtles

Last month, we were told that video games needed more racial diversity.

Now, we are told that FPS games must comply with the Geneva Convention.

As for me, I think I’ll take good ole Super Mario Brothers 3 for a spin, for old times’ sake.

Oops, can’t do that.  I hear PETA screaming.

There Goes the Neighbourhood?

It’s the Australian soap opera where House star Jesse Spencer got his start.

And it has gotten a subcontinental feel all of a sudden.

Don’t need to yell ethnic or racial slurs here, unless you want to be the new Emma West.  Just vote with your remotes, Aussies.

Slow on the Draw, Are We?

Hollywood Reporter:

On Sept. 23, Morgan Freeman went on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight to proclaim that Tea Party opposition to President Obama “is a racist thing.” The timing wasn’t ideal, considering Dolphin Tale had opened that day and the film was tracking particularly well among conservatives, many of whom the star had suddenly maligned.

While only 627,000 people saw Freeman on CNN that night, millions soon viewed the clip as Drudge Report, Twitter, Facebook and other digital outlets turned it into a viral sensation — not difficult given how partisan and personal politics have become in this run-up to the 2012 presidential election. “He belongs on my ‘no pay, no watch’ list after his latest, nearly hallucinatory raving,” wrote one commenter on a conservative media site.

With Dolphin Tale opening with a strong $19.2 million that first weekend and finishing No. 1 with $13.9 million in its second, the financial impact of Freeman’s comments is hard to quantify. But they did have an effect. In a far-ranging poll Penn Schoen Berland conducted for The Hollywood Reporter of 1,000 registered voters to gauge moviegoing tendencies of Democrats vs. Republicans, it’s clear political allegiances have shifted entertainment viewing habits. Jon Penn, the firm’s president of media and entertainment research, says that before Freeman’s words, interest in Dolphin Tale was considerably higher among conservatives and religious moviegoers than among liberals. After the remarks, 34 percent of the conservatives who were aware of them, and 37 percent of Tea Partiers, said they were less likely to see the film — but 42 percent of liberals said they were more likely. (Five days after Freeman’s remarks, 24 percent of all moviegoers were aware of them.)

In fact, overall, 35 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of Tea Partiers consider a celebrity’s political position before paying to see their films, compared with 20 percent of Democrats.

Here’s where this story disappoints me:  “Conservatives” shouldn’t have been fawning over Dolphin Tale to begin with, because the movie involves falsely portraying one of the doctors that created the prosthetic fin for the dolphin as black.

My Favorite Peter Falk Movie

Robin and the Seven Hoods.  1964.  As you can see, it was almost a full Rat Pack movie as well, but just before this movie was filmed, the RP jettisoned Peter Lawford over his approval of RFK’s anti-mafia efforts.  Lawford was supposed to play Allen A. Dale (“Alan-a-Dale”), but with he and Sinatra on non-speaking terms, the role went to Bing Crosby instead.  Peter Falk played Guy Gisbourne, the “Sheriff of Nottingham” role.  Sinatra played “Robbo,” the “Robin Hood” role, with Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr and others playing the “Merry Men of the Forest.”

RIP, Peter Falk.

187 Gets 13

It had great ratings…in Detroit.  But not much of anywhere else.

You can figure out the rest.

Yeah, 187 suffered the usual afflictions of most modern prime time traditional network police/crime dramas — Half the perps were white, and some of the black perps or suspected perps were non-traditional, black woman boss, the rising star being a young black man.  But the Fitch character (Michael Imperioli) was great, and I hope he gets a chance elsewhere.  What ultimately saved 187 for me was its plot and dialogue speed — It went fast, perfect for ours the ADD generation.

After next TV season, once House is done and the Ashton Kutcher-led 2.5 Men flames out, unless something this coming or the next season grabs my interest, I will have no prime time traditional network TV viewing appointments in the 2012-13 season.

Speaking of Detroit 187…

Money Should Never Smooch

It’s been lying around on my DVD player waiting to be watched for about a week and a half, and I finally had the opportunity of this rotten chilly rainy St. Louis weekend to watch it.

I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t as much trading action as there was in the original Wall Street, but what brought it back up to par is that it was a fairly accurate fictional depiction of the real life financial crisis of 2008.  In case it went over your head, Keller Zabel = Bear Stearns, Lewis Zabel (Frank Langella, who played Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon) = Jimmy Cayne, Churchill Schwartz = Goldman Sachs, and Bretton James (James Brolin) ≈ Jamie Dimon.  Shia LaBeouf finally showed his serious chops as an actor in sort of a Bud Fox analogue (BTW, Charlie Sheen did make a brief cameo as Bud Fox, probably the last time we’ll ever see him do any serious acting), but it was never that clear whose protege the Jake Moore character was supposed to be — You could walk away thinking he was Gekko’s, or just as easily James’s.  Unlike the original WS — you knew Fox was Gekko’s protege.  The last LeBeouf movie I saw was that dorky Disney flick Holes from 2003, and not voluntarily.

There was one really big let-down in WS: MNS — I could have done without all the lovey-dovey crap.  Unfortunately, to do this sequel, we needed an estranged-daughter-of-Gekko character (Carey Mulligan), so the lovey-dovey crap was probably inevitable.  Other than Bud Fox doing the occasional whore (good ole Charlie Sheen, even back then), there wasn’t any of that in the original WS.

One of the LOL moments was at the start of the movie — the BFP guard in the October 2001 scene was giving Gekko his stuff back that he checked into the joint back in 1993, and it included one of those brick cell phones.  That’s a bit of an anachronism, because by 1993, there were relatively smaller cell phones in common usage.  (Inasmuch as cell phone usage in 1993 was “common.”)  Yes, Gekko used the brick cell phones in the original WS, and I guess the point of that scene was to create a parlay from the first movie.  But if we’re to think the Gekko character was free on appeal and didn’t start doing time until 1993, (That is implied in MNS) it would stand to reason that he would have upgraded to, as an example, a Motorola MicroTAC (introduced 1989) or maybe even a Nokia 1011 (introduced 1992), by the time he actually had to check into Club Fed.  I also got a laugh out of some black gang banger type getting out at the same time as Gekko getting picked up in a limo, while there was none of that for him.

The good news is that the original WS is now available on Netflix streaming, and that’s probably how I’m going to spend this evening.

Peyton’s Place

…is the Cover of Madden NFL 2012.

You know the last time I bought a video game was not long after I turned 14?  Way back in the spring of 1991, for the 8-bit Nintendo.  I remember the game, too — Rad Racer II.  I bought it used for $15, and the market for that game went through the floor because most people panned it compared to the first RR.  By the time the fall of that year came and I started high school, I just got way too busy for the Nintendo I had, much less to learn the 16-bit Super Nintendo which came out that same fall, and had an implied extra dimension of game play.  The next summer, I gave my 8-bit Nintendo and all my games away to the grandson of one my mother’s best friends.

Even though I don’t own a game console, and EA Sports doesn’t make the Madden NFL series for PC, I’m going to buy Madden ’12 for PS3 anyway, just as a matter of gratitude for them putting a white running back on the cover of this year’s version.  The two finalists were Peyton Hillis and Michael Vick, and while the insider gossip said that Hillis would win easily, there was a fear that EA Sports would bow to PC racial pressure and put either Vick or someone else on the cover, instead of a white RB.  To their credit, they didn’t, and they’re going to see my 60 clams for it.  It’ll be a Christmas present for someone I know who has a PS3.

Month of Mondays

Finally returns with new episodes on Monday.

It’s been so long since there’s been a new ep that exceptionally prodigious med students could have started and finished med school in that time.

The good news is that, assuming that this season, like the others, have at least 22 eps in the can, that there will be new eps almost every Monday from now until the end of the TV season.